CEO of TDS Telecom to retire at end of year

We are customers of TDS in rural Idaho. We are customers by default becuase our little niche is owned and serviced by TDS -- we have no other options availble to us (although if we lived 11 miles west we could choose to have Verizon as our phone/internet provider).

This comment deals with TDS monopoly and it's seeminly increasing decline in customer service. Over the last six-month period, we have experienced an increase in what could loosely be described as unsollicited "obscene spam." All written inquiries to TDS customer service asking about filter programs (that they offer that we may unaware of) have gone unanswered. The only "reply" we have ever received has been an automated "thanks for your email, some one will contact you soon" type response. To date NO ONE from TDS has ever replied to address our concern. It is interesting to note that their competitor, Yahoo has a wonderful FREE spam blocking program for it's customers.

Come on dear folks at TDS. Improve your customer service. Respond to your customers with legitimate concerns. Provide better customer service by providing a spam blocking/filitering system.

From,
A very frustrated and disappointed customer.

I'm a Madison WI customer of TDS Metrocom - have had their landline and DSL service for about 1.5 years and was very
satisfied until the first week of November 2006, when the
DSL stopped working. Since that time, I have called customer
service multiple times, spending around 2.5 hrs each time;
I have regained service sporadically with varying speeds of
transmission (ranging from acceptable to slower than dialup)
and have been told each time that the problem is on the
company's side and that "there's a problem in my area".
Despite this, we go through the same ritual every time...
and am always told in the little message during the long
wait for a customer service rep that "there are no known
outages at this time". If you know there's a problem in an
area and people don't have service, isn't that a known
outage?

The customer service reps are always nice - but I'm tired
of this. I'm writing a letter to the CEO (both outgoing and
incoming) and will investigate other DSL services (at least
I have that option!). I used to highly recommend TDS, since
their rates were reasonable, their service superb, and the
customer service accessible without a looong wait - but no
more.

I have been a TDS customer for about 20 years. Like ME Ward, we don't have a choice in Choctaw Oklahoma. The service used to be good but customer service has always been customer service with an attitude. I have also been a DSL subscriber and service used to be dependable till this year (2007). We have been having outages on and off since the beginning of the year but recently (June 15th, '07) for about 10 days we may have service 2 hours a day. Like LRW, after spending numerous hours on the phone, a level 1 tech tells the level 2 tech I was talking to to tell me that they know there is problem, they don't know what it is but they are working on it. This was about 5 days ago.

On the funny side, I always get a kick out of the mailers they send us, advertising lower prices than I am already paying but when you call them, they tell you bluntly that the price is for other areas. I guess they send you the advertisements in the mail so you know how much more they are charging you each month compared to customers in areas which TDS has competition. Just My 2 cents.